A) I'm going to have to move things between the three files. Assuming this is OK, is there a max file size I need to stay under?B) While most of the .evs files seem very specific, a handful of them are a giant mess. There's one that randomly includes bridge chatter AND post-battle report voice-overs. bs999.evs is a humongous run-on nightmare that seemingly includes most of the special battle events; it even has dialogue for the Tabris fight, even though there's a separate tabris.har that segregates stuff from the same event. Being able to split apart these problem .evs would be a big help, but I have no idea if it would cause problems down the road or not.

Reichu wrote:A) I'm going to have to move things between the three files. Assuming this is OK, is there a max file size I need to stay under?

Yes you can move things between the three files.Regarding the file size, Github's online editor only works for files < 1 MB.And because the files will eventually get English text, we can expect them to grow 2x their Japanese only size (rough estimate), meaning the Japanese only file should be < 512 Kilobytes at least.

Reichu wrote:B) While most of the .evs files seem very specific, a handful of them are a giant mess. There's one that randomly includes bridge chatter AND post-battle report voice-overs. bs999.evs is a humongous run-on nightmare that seemingly includes most of the special battle events; it even has dialogue for the Tabris fight, even though there's a separate tabris.har that segregates stuff from the same event. Being able to split apart these problem .evs would be a big help, but I have no idea if it would cause problems down the road or not.

Definitely not as long as the Japanese within the "" stays the same in the move.

2 - Tried to get hgpt.py to export images from the PS2 version of the game.Got close, but I couldn't figure out the tile format. It's like 32x32 pixel blocks, with sub-blocks within them.It wasn't swizzling.

The progress here complicated the PSP code, so I removed it.Maybe it'll come back as a separate spin-off converter one day.

My response got so huge that I'll post it in two parts. The rest will follow today or tomorrow.

Niggling translation/programming stuff: Due to my lack of technical expertise, these are going to be hard to explain, but I'll do my best...

Item A) Angel ordinals.

In the evs, you'll see 第$d使徒 (the $d Angel) pop up now and again. $d just fills in a plain integer, I believe. Now, since the kanji 第 makes the integer that follows it an ordinal, this all works out fine... in Japanese. But in translation, we have a problem. If we put "the $dth Angel" (which cooperates with numbers 4 through 17), a number 3 getting slotted in there will produce "the 3th Angel". How to get around this?

Item B) Pronoun stuff

There are various instances in the game where one character is asked what they think about another. The responses are all generic in Japanese, and naturally have no pronouns whatsoever. This means, for us, using "they" in translation so the generic element is maintained. "I like them alright", "They're very special to me", "I hate their guts", etc.

I wanted to bring this up in the event there was some way to get around it, since the pronoun evasion is, if nothing else, highly distracting. Item C brings up additional issues as well.

Item C) A funny thing happened on the way to the GeoFront

I've put off addressing this one for a while since it's such a hassle to explain. Alright, check out this monster from rodata:

This is for an interaction feature added to the PSP version, where characters can share or ruminate upon PREVIOUSLY OCCURING character interactions. So, like, if you gave Rei a present in the morning, you can tell Pen Pen about it in the evening, if you want. You can probably guess just by looking at it that it's text only (not spoken) and pieced together on a case by case basis from a long list of sentence fragments provided elsewhere in rodata. This makes translation a problem. I'll illustrate with a couple of examples.

Now, the mix and match approach here makes translating the individual pieces a total nightmare, since you HAVE to know how they're being used in context to render them properly, and, boy, looking at the list in rodata, there are a LOT that I have yet to see in action. So more thorough documentation of in-game use is one order of business to take care of.

On your side of things, though, there is the matter of how to get the translation to display properly. Most obviously: having the pieces appear in the correct order. So, instead of:

Shinji Kensuke, two hours ago something that happened told: right here Hikari him a greeting from responding to.

It properly appears as:

Shinji told Kensuke something that happened two hours ago: Hikari responding to a greeting from him right here.

I have my fingers crossed that a single rearrangement of the original elements will be able to handle all necessary English translation -- but I need to collect more examples before I can feel assured about this. Some points:

%s(1) and $s(5) are sometimes left blank.

Perhaps you can explain this one... Notice how there are some particles right there in the template, yeah? は and を for instance. Now, if %s(1) or %s(5) get filled in, a particle (が or に) appears after each of the names, respectively. I would assume the actual NPC name to get drawn from one of the standardized lists in rodata, like the one at 0x001BB720 to 0x001BB7A0. But if that's so, where is the game being told to follow the name with a が or に? Guess I would have expected something like this to show up in the files you've provided and I've seen no indication of it. Understanding this might be required for getting the translation to render properly, I assume? Otherwise we might have random Japanese particles popping up amidst the English.

The second example includes the term 自分 (jibun), which literally means "self" but translates here as "him", since Shinji is the one acting. The pronoun problem raises its ugly mug again, since jibun is obviously gender neutral, and if everything here were the same aside from the PC being, say, Asuka, it would be translated as "her" instead. Putting "them" here as the translation for jibun (0x001D13B0 in rodata) is at risk of sounding much more forced than it does in the kind of character dialogue brought up in item B. Perhaps more importantly, it's unclear, since in this specific example it would imply that BOTH Shinji and Kensuke were the ones doing the greeting. This would have the potential to get comical in an instance of, say, "Shinji told Pen Pen something that happened yesterday: Ritsuko responding to a greeting from them in Unit-01's cage." (I.e.: "Wait... Pen Pen can't even leave Misato's house, what's he doing in an Eva cage?")

Item D) Participant Roles

So I was trying to translate some of the character interaction items in rodata when it occurred to me that something rather funny was afoot.

There is this noun, 受動者, that keeps on showing up. It means something like "passive participant". So it's describing, basically, a role a character can take in an interaction. The term, of course, never appears while you're playing the game; it always get swapped out with whichever character is being "done upon" at the time. (So if you have the option to approach Pen Pen, it will be ペンペンに近づく.) Whatever directs this looks like it's found here:

Two other "actor"-type terms appear here, 能動者 (active participant) and 乱入者 (intruding participant). Curiously, these don't -- unlike 受動者 -- seem to appear in the names of selectable options, and they don't show up in imtext either... so I wonder how the game is using them? Hmmm.

Well, in an attempt to dissect the issue, here's text that appears after someone barges into a conversation (i.e., takes on the "intruder" role):

So $c probably is being used consistently to mark 乱入者, the "intruder" -- someone who isn't wanted in an interaction. I'm going to take a guess now that $a is 能動者 (active participant) and $b is 受動者 (passive participant).

Well, got a bit sidetracked there. I guess the big question right now is, how exactly SHOULD 受動者 be handled when it appears in selectable player actions? Should it be left intact, as I did in the above examples? It's just a placeholder anyway, so...

Item E) Misato report dialogue

In the same vein as pilot battle yells (see here), we have Misato's voiceovers from the end-chapter battle reports. The evs is kind enough to provide in text everything that Misato is saying during these portions -- but in the game itself, there is no text window, just centered white-on-black captions that may or may not correspond to what Misato is saying. (One example at the beginning of the video here.) I don't think we can rely on graphic editing to furnish "subtitles", since the graphic captions don't necessarily correspond 1:1 to the Misato voiceovers that are possible. (In some instances, the Misato voiceover may not be present at all, in fact. Example.)

Another "no dialogue box" instance is during the best ending for Scenario 1 (here, around 5m22s). The screen goes black and we get voiceover only of the Yui/Gendo "anywhere can be paradise" scene. As usual, the game has this all written out in its files (here, in tev1905.evs).

You wondered here if it might be possible to unhide the dialogue box. Accomplishing this in some way might get increasingly important; I anticipate that more of these instances will appear to haunt us.

deeRez wrote:Does your PSP have CFW?

SSD actually sent me instructions for installing Pro CFW the other day. I'll see if I can get it working and get back to you on this.

Figuring that out would be interesting and ties with SSD's earlier request to try to activate the missing scenario.

Now that my memory has been jostled a bit, I recall that the "three Shinjis" ending was, in the PS2 version, the ending Gendo got if Rei rejected him. She can still reject him in the PSP version, so presumably that would make the "three Shinjis" ending occur. This list, for instance, makes no mention of an omitted ending in enumerating the PS2/PSP versions. The data is all this there, and the circumstances for triggering it still exist, so it seems very odd that it wouldn't be triggerable. Like, what happens instead? Very curious... I might have a half-finished Gendo game I can fire up to resolve this issue.

Reichu wrote:But in translation, we have a problem. If we put "the $dth Angel" (which cooperates with numbers 4 through 17), a number 3 getting slotted in there will produce "the 3th Angel". How to get around this?

I guess it would depend on context, but "Angel %d", "Angel #%d" or "Angel number %d" should work in some instances.

the pronoun evasion is, if nothing else, highly distracting.

It could be suggested, though, that this usage is gaining currency quite strongly these days, so the distraction should not be too long-lived. Your later examples show the problem more severely, though.

Yeah this is difficult. Reminds me of that Eva PSP game called 3nd Impact.

True, you could say Angel 2 or Impact 2 as @pwhodges suggested,but given how tied to the series phrases like Second Impact are,I do find the ordinal framing important.

For now go with $dth.We can revisit this later, by trying to add a new letter to their $ system that would return the number + appropriate ordinal suffix.

Reichu#875590 wrote:Item B) Pronoun stuff

There's a push for new non-gendered pronouns in English in modern times,but they're too rough on the edges at the moment - utilizing phonemes rough on the English tongue.

Go with they/them/themselves?

While it's true it might be possible to figure out who the dialog is about and then put the proper gender pronoun,the effort required would be hefty.

Reichu#875590 wrote:Item C) A funny thing happened on the way to the GeoFront

The "%s %s %s" stuff has a second part located in code that specifies what the parameters are.

If you can figure out the most optimal order, then I can make it happen by modifying the code.

"But if that's so, where is the game being told to follow the name with a が or に?"

The code I assume is modifying the name, storing it in a temporary place, then plugging that temporary into the sentence.

Sooooo, turns out the が character is located at 0x001D1364, which is in memory right before the sentence we're discussing.I've omitted it from rodata_translate since I wasn't sure if it was a Japanese character or a value that coincidentally looked like a Japanese character (given how short it is).

And I also found that I omitted 0x001D135C and 0x001D1360 as well:0x001D135C and 0x001D1360 become '$bに'

I'll need to update rodata_translate (and the regular rodata) to inject them into their proper places!EDIT: Done!

Regarding 自分 and "Shinji told Pen Pen something that happened yesterday: Ritsuko responding to a greeting from them in Unit-01's cage.",

Considered phrases like, "yours truly" or "thine" that break through and refer to the subject directly,but they carry certain connotations. How about oneself?

Reichu#875590 wrote:Item D) Participant Roles

If 受動者 gets replaced by the game engine,first I want to smack ArcSystems for having like 3 different text replacements systems now.%s, $a, and now replacing phrases?

Replace all occurrences of 受動者 with PsvChr - something short (six characters) in Roman that's not an English word. The others can be ActChr and IntChr. My rationale for this is so that it's at least still translated, but programmatic-looking-enough so as to not conflict with other English words. Six characters ideally because the original takes 6 bytes of memory.

Reichu#875590 wrote:Item E) Misato report dialogue

Yeah looks like this raises the priority of trying to display the dialog box.I'll definitely take a look! It might be as simple as flicking a bit somewhere in one of those unknown numbers.

Far as I can tell at the moment, the groupings in the full imtext file itself correspond to the individual dialogue classes. Lines 31822 to 35549 are Labyrinth of the Heart, for instance. Adding both the speaker and a short description of the dialogue class would probably make the five-part imtext less intimidating. Example:

# Misato (Tell Them About Angels)"使徒、ねぇ…、そうだなぁ…。$n\nセカンドインパクトの原因は\n使徒にある、というのが\n大方の見解でね。$n\nもちろん証拠が見つかっている。$n\nあの南極に現れたという\n「光の巨人」の断片と思われる\n物質が発見されてるからな。$n\nまだ研究中だが、使徒を構成する\n物質と、その巨人の断片は\n極めて近いものと推測されている。$n\n現時点では、「光の巨人」は使徒で、\nヤツがあの大災害の張本人だって\n考えるのも当然の事だろう。$n\nま、使徒は人類の仇なのさ。\n\0":'???',

I should be able to identify most of the classes. Give me the word and I'll get on it.

Does the game have cutscenes that happen while the player is standing still? I do know there's the angel appearance one that happens when the clock runs out but I don't want to hijack that one cause if there are events that happen randomly, I rather tweak the randomness. The cutscenes I've witnessed so far are all after I selected something in the world-map menu.

I think you're correct, that the cutscenes (not including most Angel arrivals or combat-based events) are triggered by moving to a new location. In terms of tweaking randomness, there seem to be a large number of exploitables in rodata, if you can find a way to access them (and based on your documentation earlier in the thread, you have probably already tapped into some of them)...

The range 0x001D1438 to 0x001D3DAC looks to me like a plethora of hidden programming stuff (for... lack of technical term). Many of the bulleted items pertain to enticing-sounding menus, like "Hideaki Anno Mode Settings" and "Event Test Menu". Around 0x001D4630, there's a bunch of what look like... event switches? 0x001D6540 to 0x001D65BC specifically look like they refer to the different "Anno" modes that you need to trigger to make different event types occur.

On the topic of figuring out what all this stuff is, should we continue to refine the rodata notes file? Have it on hand as documentation? There's still a lot I haven't added... I suspect you may be able to add some insight into identifying what the various programming-related items are, especially now that a lot of them have translations.

Possible workaround for jibun and its related pronoun issues: what if we replaced jibun with the code to insert the player character's name? I mean, between these two options:

(a) Shinji told Kensuke something that happened two hours ago: Hikari responding to a greeting from them right here. (b) Shinji told Kensuke something that happened two hours ago: Hikari responding to a greeting from Shinji right here.

The second is much clearer, so is probably preferable, right?

pwhodges wrote:I guess it would depend on context, but "Angel %d", "Angel #%d" or "Angel number %d" should work in some instances.

A viable and maybe less distracting alternative, if programming it to account for "3rd" vs. "4th ~ 17th" is too difficult, might be to simply omit the ordinal from the translation altogether. The tactical battle dialogue does sometimes just say "Angel", and specifying WHICH Angel is the exception. The ordinals aren't part of the voice clips, either -- they're just amended to the text window -- so no one would notice anything was missing.(@deeRez: But unless we decide otherwise, I'll go with "th" like you said.)

Miscellaneous Items:

(A) Special symbols in the translation? Is it okay to use emdashes, ellipses, etc.?(B) Drawing emphasis to a particular word. All caps is an option, but this can sometimes be unclear. An option I've seen in use is to frame with hyphens -like this-. (C) Percentages. I'm not sure how these are calculated, but I wanted to note that I don't always complete a block of text in one go. Like so:

# [Text Only - No Designated Speaker]# [NOTE] This text block not completed yet. -Reichu"彼女との再会を喜ぶような気持ちで、\nゆっくりとページをめくっていった。\nなんと充実した時間だろう。▽\nこの論文が書かれた時点ではまだ、\n改良の余地はあった。▽\nだが、変性意識を作り出す条件は\nそう難しい事ではない。▽\nエヴァのパイロットはこれらの\nフォローを受けてシンクロ状態を\n作り出すのだ。▽\n私は、彼女の論文を持ち帰った。\n\0":'Holding onto that joyous feeling,\nI slowly flipped the pages.\nTime more than well spent.▽\nAt the point this thesis was written,\nthere was still room for improvements.▽\nBut the conditions for producing altered consciousess \nそう難しい事ではない。▽\nエヴァのパイロットはこれらの\nフォローを受けてシンクロ状態を\n作り出すのだ。▽\nI took her thesis back with me.\n\0',

Does me doing this mess up your side of things too much? Just want to make sure.

Reichu wrote:Re:IMTEXT - Thanks for providing the full thing! Aaaand... it looks like we're in business! Digits 5 and 6 from the first parameter give us our speaker!

Cool! I'll get to regenerating the imtext parts with the added speaker information!

Reichu wrote:Far as I can tell at the moment, the groupings in the full imtext file itself correspond to the individual dialogue classes. Lines 31822 to 35549 are Labyrinth of the Heart, for instance. Adding both the speaker and a short description of the dialogue class would probably make the five-part imtext less intimidating.

...

I should be able to identify most of the classes. Give me the word and I'll get on it.

Sounds like a great idea, but hold off on carrying it out right now since we're holding IMTEXT off for the masses.(I'm adding decisions written here to my notes, which I plan to reassemble into guidelines when we prepare IMTEXT for the masses; by just making the guideline about IMTEXT, it simplifies the stuff new folks have to learn).

Also, for the masses we need a way for them to test, and yes, I began laying down the foundation code for this, last weekend. I'm using a solution that the Hatsune Miku translation team used, but with changes for Another Cases.

With data 100% done, and rodata 50%, I think it'd be best to pause work on EVS and focus on finishing off rodata.

The reason is that data / rodata, unlike the translations of game files, will need to be moved around in code to fit longer translations.For every line that can't fit in the original place due to being too long, I have to manually find the place in code where the line is used to be able to move it.

I'm also slightly worried my decision regarding skipping compression when reinjecting the files might come to bite us, because the PSP only has so little RAM. I'll probably revisit this and try to write a compressor.

Reichu wrote:I think you're correct, that the cutscenes (not including most Angel arrivals or combat-based events) are triggered by moving to a new location. In terms of tweaking randomness, there seem to be a large number of exploitables in rodata, if you can find a way to access them (and based on your documentation earlier in the thread, you have probably already tapped into some of them)...

What I ended up doing is, starting a new game on Asuka, because when one goes to NERV for the first time there is that event where Misato gives an introduction. I used this to trace how the event is being triggered. I need to explore it more because in the same process I stumbled upon how the game changes levels and I was having fun figuring out what all the map ID numbers were. (I'm not sure why the game crashes hard when trying to visit Rei as Asuka... I haven't tried it with Shinji)

Reichu wrote:The range 0x001D1438 to 0x001D3DAC looks to me like a plethora of hidden programming stuff (for... lack of technical term). Many of the bulleted items pertain to enticing-sounding menus, like "Hideaki Anno Mode Settings" and "Event Test Menu". Around 0x001D4630, there's a bunch of what look like... event switches? 0x001D6540 to 0x001D65BC specifically look like they refer to the different "Anno" modes that you need to trigger to make different event types occur.

* drool *

Yeah I barely scratched the surface. There seems to be a lot of hidden menus that I couldn't get access to the last time I looked. I definitely plan to try again sometime after most of my plate is cleared.

Reichu wrote:On the topic of figuring out what all this stuff is, should we continue to refine the rodata notes file? Have it on hand as documentation? There's still a lot I haven't added... I suspect you may be able to add some insight into identifying what the various programming-related items are, especially now that a lot of them have translations.

I could definitely take a look and refine the programming sections!

Reichu wrote:Possible workaround for jibun and its related pronoun issues: what if we replaced jibun with the code to insert the player character's name?

...

The second is much clearer, so is probably preferable, right?

Good suggestion! It's worth a shot using the $a placeholder for this case only,and slowly branching out other cases as we test them.

I assume $a will only work in things that show up in the message box.

Reichu wrote:A viable and maybe less distracting alternative, if programming it to account for "3rd" vs. "4th ~ 17th" is too difficult, might be to simply omit the ordinal from the translation altogether. The tactical battle dialogue does sometimes just say "Angel", and specifying WHICH Angel is the exception. The ordinals aren't part of the voice clips, either -- they're just amended to the text window -- so no one would notice anything was missing.(@deeRez: But unless we decide otherwise, I'll go with "th" like you said.)

Good point!

Reichu wrote:Miscellaneous Items:

(A) Special symbols in the translation? Is it okay to use emdashes, ellipses, etc.?(B) Drawing emphasis to a particular word. All caps is an option, but this can sometimes be unclear. An option I've seen in use is to frame with hyphens -like this-.

A - I'd suggest using -- for emdashes and ... for ellipses, thereby keeping the input ASCII only.I'll then convert them to the proper character.I have a feeling if I say yes, then people'll be injecting the Japanese prolonged sound character ー for emdashes,or the Japanese ellipses.

B - What does the game use for this? The Japanese brackets?

Reichu wrote:(C) Percentages. I'm not sure how these are calculated, but I wanted to note that I don't always complete a block of text in one go. Like so:

# [NOTE] This text block not completed yet. -Reichu

Does me doing this mess up your side of things too much? Just want to make sure.

Yeah it'll mess with completion percentages, but it's fine.

Reichu wrote:Haven't modded my PSP yet, so I think that's all for now.

Welcome back, Kira! Are you caught up on the thread? A lot of things have been discussed while you were away.

deeRez wrote:With data 100% done, and rodata 50%, I think it'd be best to pause work on EVS and focus on finishing off rodata.

It's not entirely clear how to translate much of this without context, so I've started work improving my documentation. While you did say...

Sounds like a great idea, but hold off on carrying it out right now since we're holding IMTEXT off for the masses.

...it's simpler and more time-effective for me to do the cataloging I mentioned in the process of figuring out what everything in rodata is. What I've been doing so far is using imtext_do_not_translate as a reference base, and creating a guide that looks like this:

The numbers correspond to the line in imtext. The text following a number is the command that, in-game, produces the dialogue and description listed in imtext. (...) indicates a range I haven't filled in yet.

Is this format alright? Would something else be easier for you to work with?

The reason is that data / rodata, unlike the translations of game files, will need to be moved around in code to fit longer translations.For every line that can't fit in the original place due to being too long, I have to manually find the place in code where the line is used to be able to move it.

Ah, right, forgot about that. I guess in that case, greater priority should be given to compressing translations? Or should we not worry about that just yet?

B - What does the game use for this? The Japanese brackets?

The brackets draw emphasis in a "key word (pay attention!)" kind of way, which isn't the only possible way. Sometimes emphasis is just implicit in the use of language.

My PSP is nice and hacked now. It actually had been all along, and I just forgot how to boot up the custom firmware. I don't have cwcheat on there yet -- do I need to get rid of my old tempar installation first? [EDIT: I suppose I could just disable it?]

EDITS:

@Kira BB Yamato: What would probably be a good idea, when we're both working on the same file at the same time, is for each of us to claim a specific range as our own. That way, no work is wasted. Then we just post in-thread when we're unavailable, freeing the claimed range back up again. What do you think?

@deeRez: It occurs to me that at least some translation of the evs will be necessary for rodata. Specifically: rodata has the player commands for the Leliel and Tabris "battles" (which you basically talk your way out of), while the evs has the actual dialogue. Without the dialogue, it's not entirely obvious how to translate the commands.

Reichu wrote:Is this format alright? Would something else be easier for you to work with?

That’s alright

Reichu wrote:Ah, right, forgot about that. I guess in that case, greater priority should be given to compressing translations? Or should we not worry about that just yet?

Do not worry about it just yet!

Reichu wrote:The brackets draw emphasis in a "key word (pay attention!)" kind of way, which isn't the only possible way. Sometimes emphasis is just implicit in the use of language.

I was going to suggest using quotes, “”or maybe Titular case. What do official translations do in this case?

Reichu wrote:My PSP is nice and hacked now. It actually had been all along, and I just forgot how to boot up the custom firmware. I don't have cwcheat on there yet -- do I need to get rid of my old tempar installation first? [EDIT: I suppose I could just disable it?]

Keep it! I’m on the verge of creating a new plugin.Cwcheat is not worth installing.

Reichu wrote:@deeRez: It occurs to me that at least some translation of the evs will be necessary for rodata. Specifically: rodata has the player commands for the Leliel and Tabris "battles" (which you basically talk your way out of), while the evs has the actual dialogue. Without the dialogue, it's not entirely obvious how to translate the commands.

In that case, do translate the EVS for those portions!

(sorry for the quick replies; really busy this week and next due to holidays)

Reichu wrote:Welcome back, Kira! Are you caught up on the thread? A lot of things have been discussed while you were away.

@Kira BB Yamato: What would probably be a good idea, when we're both working on the same file at the same time, is for each of us to claim a specific range as our own. That way, no work is wasted. Then we just post in-thread when we're unavailable, freeing the claimed range back up again. What do you think?

Yeah, I'm always keeping an eye out. It was this way with the G Gen Overworld translation too. I fade away for a time when the semester heats up, then I return and try to fire through as much as I can.

Doesn't sound bad - though I tend to either pick randomly or try to fill in any gaps I see. So I don't really claim anything.

@General: I'm not completely satisfied with the format for the notes files. They feel a bit haphazard and ugly; I'm just kind of making it up as I go along. Is there any kind of standard I should be aspiring toward? A usual way of doing these things?

Kira BB Yamato wrote:Doesn't sound bad - though I tend to either pick randomly or try to fill in any gaps I see. So I don't really claim anything.

I'm kind of the same way. But if we're both working on the same file at the same time, doesn't it make sense to avoid redundancy? It just seems like a good policy to me -- know what the other person is working on, so you can put your focus somewhere else. Makes thing more fair for both of us.

Meantime, I suppose I'll focus on the Tabris and Leliel battle stuff (the ranges are provided in the rodata_translate.notes), along with the mess of sentence fragments from 0x001CC12C to 0x001D1274.

deeRez wrote:I was going to suggest using quotes, “”or maybe Titular case. What do official translations do in this case?

Official translations nowadays have more formatting liberties, I believe? You can incorporate things like bold and italics into subtitles. I'll have to keep an eye open, though.

To clarify, here's a couple of examples of what I'm talking about. ("CAN" in the first one, "-to-" in the second.)

Some stuff's been happening IRL and I haven't gotten too much done the past couple of weeks. Seems like the rest of you have been busy as well, so no real issue, I suppose. Meantime, I have grabbed some Japanese grammars plus a handbook on the Kansai dialect (*shakes fist at Toji*) and I'll keep trying to brush up here and there. Whenever the project rouses a bit again, I won't be too far away.

Reichu wrote:Some stuff's been happening IRL and I haven't gotten too much done the past couple of weeks. Seems like the rest of you have been busy as well, so no real issue, I suppose. Meantime, I have grabbed some Japanese grammars plus a handbook on the Kansai dialect (*shakes fist at Toji*) and I'll keep trying to brush up here and there. Whenever the project rouses a bit again, I won't be too far away.

Don't worry! I don't expect this project to be completed in less than a year anyhow, and you folks have made tremendous progress within the first three months.

I've taken a look at the programmer-text ranges in the notes you've made, and there was nothing I could add that might help figure out what those sections are. They're all some kind of debug menu.

Also, if rodata is not rewarding/too-stressful at the moment, feel free to put aside what I said regarding making rodata top priority, and instead dabble with the EVS files

Regarding the standard in the notes, what you have is fine.

I do like your use of uppercase and -to- ... hmm;

Maybe for expressing vocal loudness it can be uppercase (simulating bold)e.g. I did NOT give it to him

For expressing vocal emphasis, - - can be used (simulating italics)e.g. You don't understand, he -lost- the money

For descriptions, " " can be usedYou're going to meet Fresno, the "cook of all cooks"

The .wav files are in Sony's atrac3plus format, which I don't think many things can play,but ffmpeg can convert them to .mp3.

There might be some interesting unused sounds to find if someone wants to take a look.

EDIT: Currently I'm taking another look at the decompression routines in NGE2. I never ended up documenting the compression method properly, because I ended up writing a stripped-down PSP emu in Python and having it run the game's exact decompression code and calling it a day, but that means we have zero ability to compress stuff.

If we want to modify images, we're going to need to compress them due to the PSP's memory limits.

I'm bored to tears having to tackle compression, but going to bite the bullet and plow through.

Since Python doesn't support gotos nor variable gotos, I ended up doing a slight hack to simulate labels/gotos using a while loop, a bunch of ifs, and continues. I wrote some bootstrapping code to do the conversion instead of doing it manually.

I plan to start modifying the pieces of logic in zipped.py some more to simplify it in order to be able to write a decompressor.